OPEN LETTER TO HIS EXCELLENCY MACKY SALL, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SENEGAL

His Excellency Macky Sall
President of The Republic of Sénégal
Dakar
Senegal

27/08/17

Your Excellency,

We in the International Steering Committee (ISC) of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide!’ Campaign (SMWeCGEC) write to you as head of state of the Republic of Sénégal. We unequivocally condemn and demand the immediate, remorseful and unconditional release of Brother Kémi Séba, President of ‘Urgences Panafricanistes’ (SOS Pan-Afrika) who was arrested and detained on 25th August 2017.

One of the aims of the SMWeCGEC is “to amplify the voices of communities of reparatory justice interest who are engaged in resistance to the various manifestations of the Maangamizi today“. Accordingly, we recognise Brother Kémi Séba as being one of those most notably involved in activism towards stopping the Maangamizi of the present.

It is our overstanding that Kémi Séba was arrested by officers from the Division of Criminal Investigations (DIC), the Sénégalésé equivalent of the FBI, and detained at the Rebeuss prison in Dakar for burning a 5,000 Francs CFA (West African CFA Franc and the Central African CFA Franc) banknote during a rally against the “Françafrique” organised by Urgences Panafricanistes which took place on 19th August 2017. Kémi Séba has described this gesture of protesting to this monetary form of bondage as “symbolic”. For the CFA mainly serves the interests of European groups – in particular the French – operating in Francophone Afrikan countries monetary zones in addition to their rentier elites.

Irrespective of whether or not such a symbolic action contravenes Article 411 of the Sénégalésé Criminal Code provides which states that “anyone who wilfully burns or destroys in any way registers, minutes or Public authorities, securities, notes, bills of exchange, commercial or bank papers … If the destroyed documents are acts of public authority or bills of commerce or banking, the penalty shall be imprisonment of five years to ten years”; we regard this application of the criminal code as being an example of unjust law which is designed to preserve the relics of colonialism in Sénégal and penalise those who seek to lawfully protest against this form of French monetary imperialism and conquest.

We see the Sénégalésé state response to his laudable protest action as the perpetration, on your part, of another crime of the Maangamizi for which Afrikan people are organising to effect and secure Pan-Afrikan Reparatory Justice.

We hold the person of Brother Kémi Séba in very high esteem and regard his courageous work on this anti-CFA Franc social movement as a valuable Pan-Afrikan Reparatory Justice contribution to stopping the continuing Maangamizi crimes of Genocide/Ecocide against Afrikan people today not only in Afrika but throughout the World. That is why we honour him with our distinguished title of a “Sankofakakatitsokale” (Sankofa-Torchbearing-Brave) of our International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations (ISMAR) in link with the Peoples’ Reparations International Movement (PRIM).

Your holding Kémi Séba in prison is of no avail in silencing him because his is one of the powerful voices from the still valiantly Freedomfighting Black Power heartdepths of our Communities of Resistance throughout the continent and Diaspora of Afrika that we of the SMWeCGEC are already amplifying; and will keep resounding from Europe, to reach all the nooks and crevices of our entire Mother Earth, for all to hear.

We see this arrest as an act of repression against this courageous Pan-Afrikan activist. Kémi Séba’s arrest and continued detention is also a most graphic example of the Maangamizi crime of state terrorism in the service of white supremacist racism. In this regard, we support the view of activist Ndéyé Nogayé Babél Sow, coordinator of the Anti-Franc CFA Front in Sénégal, who in her recent interview with SeneNews TV on 26/08/17, accuses France of being behind the complaint of La Banque Centrale des États de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (Central Bank of West African States, BCEAO), which led to the arrest of Kémi Séba. Nothing short of the unconditional release of our Brother Kémi Séba will suffice in assisting to salvage the already damaged reputation of yourself and your government in Sénégal before the high courts of opinion of the masses of our Afrikan people and the progressive forces of the true International Community.

So long as Kémi Séba continues to be detained and put before this kangaroo court process of Maangamizi injustice, we continue to regard him as a political prisoner being persecuted by the state of Sénégal on behalf of the French Gendarmerie of Euro-American imperialism. We therefore demand that his human and people’s rights under international law are respected as such; and that international human rights standards regarding the treatment of prisoners are also adhered to.

“The Franc CFA is a colonial economic-political scandal that kills our people. In the name of our ancestors, I cannot be silent when I see our people being robbed (both by the French oligarchy and by our Afrikan elites who betray their mission). If, in order to place this fight against Franc CFA in the center of the debates (as we were able to do in a historical way this year), I must be deprived of my family whom I love madly, my brothers and sisters of ‘Urgences Panafricanistes’ or the many brothers and sisters who love us, I will do so without hesitation. For sovereignty is the struggle of our generation…”

English translation of Kémi Séba Facebook post on 24/08/17

“We are part of this generation of activists who are committed, who do not commit themselves lightly. When Kémi Séba poses this act, he is aware of the risks, but I want to say that we do not make omelettes without breaking eggs… A revolution is always part of an act of transgression. When you consider that a law or a system is iniquitous, it is the responsibility of every citizen to take responsibility, to take courage in both hands and to protest against a law that can violate freedoms and the inalienable right of each one. The CFA Franc is the symbol of an easement, the CFA Franc does not allow the Afrikan countries to develop. The CFA Franc maintains Afrikan countries in a form of dependence on France. It is the duty of every citizen who aspires to the freedom to pose any act likely to enable him to free himself. In this sense burning a ticket of 5000 FCFA is certainly losing 5000 FCFA but it is mainly burning what incarnates a system of submission and servitude . It is above all an act that allows us to free ourselves and to escape from a system. I take the example of Mandela who had burned his pass under apartheid, it is part of these historical acts of transgression. If you consider that a law does not have to be, it is the duty of every citizen to put down the acts of the end of servitude. That is how it should be read.”

English translation of comments made by Héry Djéhuty, Coordinator of Urgences Panafricanistes in an interview with La Nouvelle Tribune (27/08/17)